Semi-frequent Questions about the Nikon F2
You could do a better job? Probably. I'll do as best as I can, though. The first part of this document is lifted (with some editing) from an email conversation that I had with Dave Nunn, who graciously allowed me to use it to help start this document.
What Flash system is most suited to the F2?
What is an approximate second-hand value for the F2 in first class condition?
How do you lock up the mirror on a F2?
How do you open the F2?
Why does the F2 have numbers engraved on the self-timer lever?
How do I meter long time exposures with the DP-2, -3, or -12 meters?
What were the standard prisms used with the F2?
What is the difference between the F2xx's?
What does the collar around the shutter release do?
What can I do about a jumpy meter needle?
What do I do about a shutter hole?
What do all of the dials and levers on the back of the MD-2 do?
What's an MF-3?
How come the MD-3 is cheaper than the -2?
What is the significance of a serial number?
How do I get exposure information from non-prong lenses to the DP-1, -2, or -3 finders?
How do I know where the film plane is?
Any flash that has a PC-socket will connect to this camera.
Nikon made a series of flashes (SB-1, -2, -5, and -7E) that connect directly onto
the hotshoe of the F2 (it surrounds the rewind knob). The main advantage of buying
Nikon flashes would be to have the "flash-ready" light activate in the
finder when the flash is fully charged. Personally, I use a Metz 45-series flash,
and find it's more than adequate in automatic mode. You can also use any ISO-foot
(e.g. Vivitar 283, etc.) flash if you purchase the AS-1 flash adapter (appox. $20-40
US, secondhand), which slips around the nonstandard F2 flash shoe and provides you
with an ISO connection. I believe that the AS-5 adapts F3-footed flashes to the F/F2
shoe. The F2 does not have TTL flash metering or indeed any control of the flash
other than firing it. I have heard that the reason for the nonstandard location of
the flash shoe is because of the interchangeable prisms -- adding a flash to the
top of the camera could conceivably produce enough torque to rip the finder off the
body.
The camera itself will run about $100-$300 US, with finders
(see the reply to the question below) ranging from $150 (DP-1) to $400 (DP-12). However,
there are special variants of the F2, including a titanium body that goes for about
$2000 US. The lens prices depend on which lens you'd like, whether a 35f2.8($150),
to a 28f3.5 PC ($1000), to a 24f2.8 ($250), all the way to a 13f5.6 ($10,000 US).
I'd say that you could pick up a pristine F2 with eyelevel (no meter) finder and
a 24f2.8 for about $600-700 US, which honestly isn't too bad for a camera that would
probably cost appox. $3000+ to make today (the F2 was the last of the hand-assembled
Nikons). If you are planning to motorise the camera, try to get one with a later
serial number (73xxxxx) or later, as some of the earlier ones had a small problem
with "kickback" in the film take-up spool -- apparently, it can cause ghost
images to form on the film as it is kicked through the camera.
Push in the depth-of-field button and rotate the surrounding
collar until the two dots line up to lock up the mirror. You can actually see the
mirror moving up, if you take off the lens.
Well, first of all, you need to have the appropriate prism
(DP-2, -3, or -12) and know how to
set long speeds. You'll notice on your physical shutter
speed indicator (outside the viewfinder view) that there is a separate ring above
it with additional 2, 4, 6, 8, and 10s (but 10s is indicated with a dot) speeds.
When the main shutter speed control is set to "B", press down on the small
silver button and turn the shutter speed dial; the separate ring will now turn to
the selected speed. Once you set the self-timer lever, you're ready to expose.
One small note of caution to DP-2 (F2S) owners: if you suddenly switch from a fairly
bright to a dim metering situation, you will need to let your meter adjust to the
low levels, for about a minute or two. The DP-3 and -12 do not have this "feature",
since they use silicon blue photodiodes, rather than the CdS photoresistor in the
DP-2.
The F2 came, over its lifetime, with five different "standard"
prisms. You probably also want to go check out my semi-exciting (ok, no pics) prisms page.
The prisms were the eyelevel DE-1 (somewhat rare) and metered prisms DP-1 (common),
DP-2 (uncommon), DP-3 (rare), DP-11 (uncommon), and DP-12 (uncommon), using Atari
2600 cartridge rarity ratings.
The various (official) name combinations are:
Official Name = Combination = Shorthand
F2 Eyelevel = F2 with DE-1 = F2
F2 Photomic = F2 with DP-1 = F2 (Photomic)
F2 Photomic S = F2 with DP-2 = F2S
F2 Photomic SB = F2 with DP-3 = F2SB
F2 Photomic A = F2 with DP-11 = F2A
F2 Photomic AS = F2 with DP-12 = F2AS
Going from right to left, you have "L"ock, normal,
and "T"ime shutter release setting. When the collar is on L, the shutter
will not fire (unless you have a motordrive hooked up -- its setting overrides those
on the collar, but you can still use the manual shutter release if you want). In
the middle position, you can fire away as you please. To use the T setting, you need
to turn the shutter speed dial to "B" and the collar to T. If you want
a shutter speed of 2, 4, 6, 8, or 10 seconds, take note of the above question on
long shutter speeds. If you want a longer speed, take off the lenscap, put your hat
or hand or something in front of the lens, release the shutter with the top-deck
shutter release, and once the vibrations have gone away, pull the obscuring object
of choice away from the front of the lens and start counting seconds (or minutes/hours)
... obscure the lens again before you close the shutter by turning the collar away
from T. This feature is designed mostly for those who don't have locking cable releases
and don't want to stand around squeezing a cable release for up to hours on end (I
know that there's some star-trail photographers out there ...).
The quick solution is to jump around yourself as you take pictures,
so that you don't notice it jumping. Probably the more rational solution is to break
open that piggy bank, forget about the nice 180f/2.8 that you had your eye on, and
find a DP-12 (Del's usually has one or two of them in stock). The meter needle is
jumpy because somehow, your ring resistor has gotten scratched whether by dirt or
misadventure. The ring resistor is the part that we all revile (all together now:
boo!) because it was the part voted most likely to fail when the F2 graduated from
the ranks of new cameras in 1980. Almost immediately, Nikon stopped making it. If
you really wanted to get your ring resistor fixed, you'd have to get a DP-1, DP-2,
or DP-11 (with an intact ring resistor) and swap them -- the whole surgery would
probably cost you as much as a DP-12.
Granted, you can live with the jumpiness, but it's only a matter of time before it
fails (right as you see Bigfoot ... now, let's see, it's sunny-16, and right now
it's patchily cloudy, and I want to expose the fur correctly so that would be ...
dang). If you don't want to spend the bucks on a DP-12, you could get a nice handheld
meter, and have implements dangling from your neck all day (I did it once; not too
fun).
More specifically, if you are having trouble with your ring
resistor, you might want to try:
- Cleaning the Ring Resistor
- Southeast Camera Repair
- 6300 Jimmy Carter Blvd
- Norcross, GA 30071
- (770)441-7700
- Many thanks to Tyler Knapp, who has used this repair shop and wanted to share it with everyone.
Perhaps some joker has attached a lead brick to the bottom
of your camera -- er, no, that's just the MD-2. I dunno. F2's are heavy. They are
reputedly the last of the hand-assembled Nikons, so you might want to think about
that before you use yours as a paperweight, doorstop, or hammer. However, it's easy
to get caught up in the whole notion of weight = quality; what it really means is
that Nikon's designers felt that those materials were the best to use in the F2 at
the time. Have materials advanced since 1971? Yes. Are quality materials available
for lighter weight? Yes. If you don't believe me, or are a diehard metal fan, tell
me that its as easy to dent an F3/T as it is to dent a regular F3. Is plastic crap?
No. Used in the places that camera designers feel fit, it's likely to last as long
as a comparable metal part, while delivering tremendous weight savings. I'm not saying
that I'm a huge fan of plastic, just that I'm no longer a metal fanatic. If you want
to really argue about it, just post something like "(material of your choice
here) rules and (alternative material) is crap" on the Usenet.
Pray that you find a good repair shop -- I hear good (i.e.
miraculous) things about Professional Camera Repair in New York City. Otherwise,
you now have that nice paperweight, doorstop, or hammer that you always wanted. Lots
of smaller camera repair shops do not have the knowhow to replace the horizontally-travelling
shutter (which, as far as I know, is currently being made in the F3HP, the Leica
M6, and the Olympus OM-3/4, what with the recent demise [sob] of the Pentax LX),
not to mention that the only possible new replacement would be an F3's shutter curtains.
And yes, you will need to break open that piggy bank (again).
Going from right to left, you have the two contacts for the
MF-3 stop back, the rewind button lever, the countdown timer knob, the firing rate
control, the rewind engagement lever and locking button, and the back-opening lever.
You can set the countdown timer knob to count down the appropriate number of frames
before it stops shooting pictures, or you can put it in "S" to allow an
indefinite amount of pictures to be taken. To rewind the film, first push up on the
rewind button lever (push the silver button in the middle of this lever first), then
hold the small button to the left of the rewind engagement lever down and push the
engagement lever to the right. To stop the rewind, just push the engagment lever
back to the left. To open the back, flip the opening lever out and push it to the
left. The firing rate control dictates the speed of the motor, as well as the minimum
shutter speed required to sustain the speed. Falling below the speed is not catastrophic,
as long as you don't do it regularly; however, be advised that the motor will mindlessly
advance the film whether or not the exposure has been completed. If you're going
to take pictures at about 1/8th or slower, the motordrive doesn't really need to
be turned on.
Note that the MD-1 lacks the rewind contacts on the back of the drive and has a large,
square firing button, rather than the small, round button of the MD-2.
Yep. It provides leader-out rewind like the MF-6(B) does for
the F3 and also gives you a neat thumb rest for your right hand. I'm thinking of
trying to find one just for the thumb rest, because the F2 with the MD-2 is a large,
heavy brick of a camera, and the thumb rest would make it nicer to hold.
The MD-3 lacks the power rewind and firing rate converter of
the MD-2(1). It also has no provision for leaving the film leader out on rewind.
Because it has no converter, you can only use the MD-3 on continuous at sync speed
(1/80) and higher; slower than that, and you need to use single-shot mode. Actually,
Nikon discontinued parts for the MD-3 only recently, so keeping and running one wouldn't
be too expensive. The MD-3 is nice (because it lacks the power rewind) in that you
can take the drive off of the camera in the middle of the roll and not fog the film.
It's also nice in that it runs happily (and in fact was designed for) the MB-2 battery
pack, which only requires you to sling 8 AA's around your neck (rather than the 10
that the MB-1 demands) -- it will work with the MB-1, though. Predictably, the MD-3
is somewhat slower than the MD-2, although if you're not shooting with NiCads, you
probably won't notice the difference. |
The Amazing Kreskin (the amazing who?) says ... you have a
chrome F2. Amaze your friends! Awe your coworkers! Tell them that if the serial number's
second digit is an even number, the camera is chrome; if odd, the camera is black.
The legend that the camera was made in the year shown in the first two digits is
thus probably false, unless you think that Nikon made only one color per year. The
major exceptions to this are the titanium versions of the F2, which begin with serial
number 92xxxxx and have a black pebbled finish, much like the F3/T in black finish.
"Moose" Peterson says that early (71xxxxx and 72xxxxx) F2's have a small
problem with the take-up spool: these can supposedly cause some frame overlap when
using a motordrive (but should be fine if you wind-by-hand).
I've received information in the past weeks that there do exist chrome 73's and black
74's. Perhaps Nikon changed the serial numbering with the 75's and later (which I
do believe follow the even = chrome / odd = black system).
With no lens mounted on the camera, push the coupling prong
straight up into the finder body and use stop-down metering.
According to Nikon, the film plane is at the top edge of the serial numbers.